Synonyms

A city is generally an urban settlement with a
large population. However, a city may also be a settlement with a
special administrative, legal, or historical status.

Present-day cities are products of the Industrial
Revolution and are generally distinguished by land area and
population. Large, industrialized cities generally have advanced
organizational systems for sanitation, utilities, land distribution,
housing, and transportation. In
economic terms, a city is simply defined as the absence of physical
space between people and firms. This close proximity greatly
facilitates interaction between people and firms, benefiting both
parties in the process. However, there is debate now whether the
age of technology and instantaneous communication with the use of
the Internet are
making cities obsolete.

The birth of cities

There is currently insufficient
evidence to assert what conditions in world history spawned the
first true cities. Theorists, however, have offered arguments for
what the right conditions might have been and have identified some
basic mechanisms that might have been the important driving
forces.

Cities or agriculture first?

The conventional view holds
that cities first formed after the Neolithic
revolution. The Neolithic revolution brought agriculture, which made
denser human populations possible, thereby supporting city
development . The advent of farming encouraged hunter-gatherers to
abandon nomadic lifestyles and to choose to settle near others who
lived off of agricultural production. The increased population
density encouraged by farming and the increased output of food per
unit of land, created conditions that seem more suitable for
city-like activities. In his book, “Cities and Economic
Development,” Paul Bairoch
takes up this position as he provides a seemingly straightforward
argument, which makes agricultural activity appear necessary before
true cities can form.

According to Vere
Gordon Childe, for a settlement to qualify as a city, it must
have enough surplus of raw materials to support trade . Bairoch
points out that, due to sparse population densities that would have
persisted in pre-Neolithic, hunter-gatherer societies, the amount
of land that would be required to produce enough food for
subsistence and trade for a large population would make it
impossible to control the flow of trade. To illustrate this point,
Bairoch offers “Western Europe during the pre-Neolithic, [where]
the density must have been less than 0.1 person per square
kilometer”, as an example. Using this population density as a base
for calculation, and allotting 10% of food towards surplus for
trade and assuming that there is no farming taking place among the
city dwellers, he calculates that “in order to maintain a city with
a population of 1,000, and without taking the cost of
transportation into account, an area of 100,000 square kilometers
would have been required. When the cost of transportation is taken
into account, the figure rises to 200,000 square kilometers..." .
Bairoch noted that 200,000 square kilometers is roughly the size of
Great Britain.

In her book “The Economy of Cities,” Jane Jacobs
makes the controversial claim that city-formation preceded the
birth of agriculture. Jacobs does not lend her theory to any strict
definition of a city, but her account suggestively contrasts what
could only be thought of as primitive city-like activity to the
activity occurring in neighboring hunter-gatherer
settlements.

To argue that cities came first, Jacobs offers a
fictitious scenario where a valued natural resource leads to
primitive economic activity that eventually creates conditions for
the discovery of grain culture. Jacobs calls the imaginary city New
Obsidian, where a stock of obsidian is controlled and
traded with neighboring hunting groups. Those that do not control
the stock demand the obsidian, so hunters travel great distances to
barter what they have. Hunters value obsidian because “[o]bsidian
makes the sharpest tools to be had" . Hunters arrive with live
animals and produce, providing New Obsidian with food imports. When
New Obsidians want goods that they do not have access to at their
settlement, they take the obsidian as a currency to other
settlements for trade. This basic economic activity turns the
little city into a sort of “depot” where, in addition to exporting
obsidian, a service of obtaining, handling and trading of goods
that are brought in from elsewhere are made available for secondary
customers. This activity brings more people to the center as jobs
are created and goods are being traded. Among the goods traded are
seeds of all different sorts and they are stored in unprecedented
combinations. In various ways, some accidental, the seeds are sown,
and the variation in yields among the different types of seeds are
readily observed, more readily than they would in the wild. The
seeds that yield the most grain are noticed and trading them begins
to occur within the city. Owing to this local dealing, New
Obsidians find that their grain yields are the best and for the
first time “the selection becomes deliberate and conscious. The
choices made now are purposeful, and they are made among various
strains of already cultivated crosses, and their crosses, mutants
and hybrids . The new way of producing food allows for food surplus
and the surplus is offset by the population increase that results
from an increase in labor that the new production method has
created. The new source of food allows New Obsidian to switch its
imports from mostly food, to mostly other materials that
neighboring settlements are rich in, but could not barter with
before. The craftsman that develop in New Obsidian make good use of
the explosion of the new material imports and the work to be done
increases rapidly along with the population as neighboring
settlements are absorbed by the city activities.

Why do cities form?

Theorists have identified many possible
reasons for why people would have originally decided to come
together to form dense populations. In his book “City Economics,”
Brendan
O’Flaherty asserts “Cities could persist—as they have for
thousands of years—only if their advantages offset the
disadvantages" . O’Flaherty illustrates two similar attracting
advantages known as
increasing returns to scale and economies
of scale, which are concepts normally associated with firms,
but their applications are seen in more basic economic systems as
well. Increasing returns to scale occurs when “doubling all inputs
more than doubles the output [and] an activity has economies of
scale if doubling output less than doubles cost” . To offer an
example of these concepts, O’Flaherty makes use of “one of the
oldest reasons why cities were built: military protection” . In
this example, the inputs are anything that would be used for
protection (i.e.: a wall) and the output is the area protected and
everything of value contained in it. O’Flaherty then asks that we
suppose that the area to be protected is square and each hectare
inside it has the same value of protection. The advantage is
expressed as: . (1) O = s^2, where O is the output (area protected)
and s stands for the length of a side. This equation shows that
output is proportional to the square of the length of a side.

The inputs depend on the length of the
perimeter:

(2) I = 4s, where I stands for the quantity of
inputs. This equation shows that the perimeter is proportional to
the length of a side.

So there are increasing returns to scale:

(3) O = I^2/16. This equation (algebraically,
combining (1) and (2)) shows that with twice the inputs, you
produce quadruple the output.

Also, economies of scale:

(4) I =4O^1/2. This equation (combining (1) and
(2)) shows that the same output requires less input. “Cities, then,
economize on protection, and so protection against marauding
barbarian armies is one reason why people have come together to
live in cities…” .

Similarly, “Are Cities Dying?” by Edward L.
Glaeser, delves into similar reasons for city formation: reduced
transport costs for goods, people, and ideas. An interesting piece
from Glaeser’s article is his argument about the benefits of
proximity. He claims that if you double a city size, workers have a
ten percent increase in earnings. Glaeser furthers his argument by
logically stating that bigger cities don’t pay more for equal
productivity in a smaller city, so it is reasonable then to assume
that workers actually become more productive if you move them to a
city twice the size than they initially worked in. However, the
workers don’t really benefit from the ten percent wage increase
because it is recycled back into the higher cost of living in a
bigger city.

Geography

Modern city planning has seen many different
schemes for how a city should look. The most commonly seen pattern
is the grid, favoured
by the Romans, almost a rule in parts of the New World, and
used for thousands of years in China. Derry was the first
ever planned city
in Ireland, begun in 1613, with the walls being completed five
years later. The central diamond within a walled city with four
gates was thought to be a good design for defence. The grid pattern
chosen was widely copied in the colonies of British North America.
However, the grid has been around for far longer than the British
Empire. The Ancient Greeks often gave their colonies around the
Mediterranean a grid plan. One of the best examples is the city of
Priene. This
city even had its different districts, much like modern city
planning today. Fifteen centuries earlier the Indus
Valley Civilization was using grids in such cities as Mohenjo-Daro.
Grid plans were popular among planners in the 19th century; such
plans were typical in the American
West, in places such as Salt Lake
City and San
Francisco. Also in Medieval times we see a preference for
linear planning. Good examples are the cities established in the
south of France by various rulers and city expansions in old Dutch
and Flemish cities.

Other forms may include a radial structure in
which main roads converge on a central point, often the effect of
successive growth over long time with concentric traces of town walls and
citadels - recently
supplemented by ring-roads that take traffic around the edge of a
town. Many Dutch cities
are structured this way: a central square surrounded by concentric
canals. Every city expansion would imply a new circle (canals +
town walls). In cities like Amsterdam and
Haarlem,
and elsewhere, such as in Moscow, this pattern
is still clearly visible.

History

Towns and cities have a long history, although
opinions vary on whether any particular ancient
settlement can be considered to be a city. A city formed as central
places of trade for the benefit of the members living in close
proximity to others facilitates interaction of all kinds. These
interactions generate both positive and negative externalities
between other’s actions. Benefits include reduced transport costs,
exchange of ideas, sharing of natural resources, large local
markets, and later in their development, amenities such as running
water and sewage
disposal. Possible costs would include higher rate of crime, higher
mortality rates, higher cost of living, worse pollution, traffic
and high commuting times. Cities will grow when the benefits of
proximity between people and firms are higher than the cost. The
first true towns are sometimes considered to be large settlements
where the inhabitants were no longer simply farmers of the
surrounding area, but began to take on specialized occupations, and
where trade, food storage and power was centralized. In 1950Gordon
Childe attempted to define a historic city with 10 general
metrics. These are:

Size and density of the population should be above normal.

Differentiation of the population. Not all residents grow their
own food leading to specialists.

Payment of taxes to a deity or king.

Monumental public buildings.

Those not producing their own food are supported by the king.

Systems of recording and practical science.

A system of writing.

Development of symbolic art.

Trade and import of raw materials.

Specialist craftsmen from outside the kin-group.

This
categorisation is descriptive, and not all ancients cities fit into
this well, but it is used as a general touchstone when considering
ancient cities.

One characteristic that can be used to
distinguish a small city from a large town is organized government.
A town accomplishes common goals through informal agreements
between neighbors or the leadership of a chief. A city has
professional administrators, regulations, and some form of taxation
(food and other necessities or means to trade for them) to feed the
government workers. The governments may be based on heredity,
religion, military power, work projects (such as canal building),
food distribution, land ownership, agriculture, commerce,
manufacturing, finance, or a combination of those. Societies that
live in cities are often called civilizations. A city can
also be defined as an absence of physical space between people and
firms.

Ancient times

Early cities developed in a number of regions
of the ancient world. Mesopotamia can
claim the earliest cities, particularly Eridu, Uruk, and Ur. Although it has
sometimes been claimed that ancient Egypt lacked
urbanism, in fact several types of urban settlements were found in
ancient times. The Indus
Valley Civilization and China are two other
areas of the Old World with major indigenous urban traditions.
Among the early Old World cities, Mohenjo-daro
of the Indus Valley Civilization was one of the largest, with an
estimated population of 40,000 or more. Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, the large
Indus capitals, were among the first cities to use grid plans,
drainage, flush
toilets, urban sanitation systems, and
sewage systems. At a somewhat later time, a distinctive urban
tradition developed in the Khmer region of
Cambodia, where Angkor grew into one
of the largest cities (in area) the world has ever seen.

In the ancient New World, early urban traditions
developed in Mesoamerica and
the Andes.
Mesoamerica saw the rise of early urbanism in several cultural
regions, including the Classic
Maya, the Zapotec of Oaxaca,
and Teotihuacan in
central Mexico. Later cultures such as the Aztec drew on these
earlier urban traditions. In the Andes, the first urban centers
developed in the Chavin and Moche cultures,
followed by major cities in the Huari, Chimu and Inca cultures.

This roster of early urban traditions is notable
for its diversity. Excavations at early urban sites show that some
cities were sparsely-populated political capitals, others were
trade centers, and still other cities had a primarily religious
focus. Some cities had large dense populations whereas others
carried out urban activities in the realms of politics or religion
without having large associated populations. Theories that attempt
to explain ancient urbanism by a single factor such as economic
benefit fail to capture the range of variation documented by
archaeologists (Smith 2002). The growth of the population of
ancient civilizations, the formation of ancient empires concentrating political
power, and the growth in commerce and manufacturing led to ever
greater capital cities
and centres of commerce and industry, with Alexandria,
Antioch and
Seleucia
of the Hellenistic
civilization, Pataliputra
(now Patna)
in India,
Chang'an
(now Xi'an)
in China,
Carthage,
ancient
Rome, its eastern successor Constantinople
(later Istanbul), and
successive Chinese, Indian and Muslim
capitals approaching or exceeding the half-million population
level. It is estimated that ancient Rome had a population of about
a million people by the end of the first century BC, after growing
continually during the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st centuries BCE. And it is
generally considered the largest city before 19th century London.
Alexandria's
population was also close to Rome's population at around the same
time, the historian Rostovtzeff estimates a total population close
to a million based on a census dated from 32 CE that counted
180,000 adult male citizens in Alexandria. Similar administrative,
commercial, industrial and ceremonial centres emerged in other
areas, most notably Baghdad, which to
some urban historians, later became the first city to exceed a
population of one million by the 8th century instead of Rome.

Agriculture was practiced in sub-Saharan Africa since the
third millennium BCE. Because of this, cities were able to develop
as centers of non-agricultural activity. Exactly when this first
happened is still a topic of archeological and historical
investigation. Western scholarship has tended to focus on cities in
Europe and Mesopotamia, but emerging archeological evidence
indicates that urbanization occurred south of the Sahara in well
before the influence of Arab urban culture. The oldest sites
documented thus far are from around 500 CE including Awdaghust,
Kumbi-Saleh the ancient capital of Ghana, and Maranda a center
located on a trade rout between Egypt and Gao.

Middle Ages

During the European Middle Ages,
a town was as much a political entity as a collection of houses.
City residence brought freedom from customary rural obligations to
lord and community: "Stadtluft macht frei" ("City air makes you
free") was a saying in Germany. In Continental
Europe cities with a legislature of their own were not unheard
of, the laws for towns as a rule other than for the countryside,
the lord of a town often being another than for surrounding land.
In the Holy
Roman Empire some cities had no other lord than the emperor. In
Italy,
Medieval
communes had quite a statelike power. In exceptional cases like
Venice,
Genoa or
Lübeck,
cities themselves became powerful states, sometimes taking
surrounding areas under their control or establishing extensive
maritime empires. Similar phenomena existed elsewhere, as in the
case of Sakai, which
enjoyed a considerable autonomy in late medieval Japan.

Early Modern

While the city-states, or
poleis, of the Mediterranean
and Baltic
Sea languished from the 16th century, Europe's larger capitals
benefited from the growth of commerce following the emergence of an
Atlantic
trade. By the late 18th century, London had become
the largest city in the world with a population of over a million,
while Paris
rivaled the well-developed regionally-traditional capital cities of
Baghdad,
Beijing,
Istanbul
and Kyoto.
During the Spanish colonization of the Americas
the old Roman city concept was extensively used. Cities were
founded in the middle of the newly conquered territories, and were
bound to several laws about administration, finances and
urbanism.

Most towns remained far smaller places, so that
in 1500 only some two dozen places in the world contained more than
100,000 inhabitants: as late as 1700 there were fewer than forty, a
figure which would rise thereafter to 300 in 1900. A small city of
the early modern period might contain as few as 10,000 inhabitants,
a town far fewer still.

Industrial Age

The growth of modern industry from the late 18th
century onward led to massive urbanization and the rise
of new great cities, first in Europe and then in other regions, as
new opportunities brought huge numbers of migrants from
rural communities into urban areas. In the United States from
1860 to 1910, the invention of railroads reduced transportation
costs, and large manufacturing centers began to emerge, thus
allowing migration from rural to city areas. However, cities during
those periods of time were deadly places to live in, due to health
problems resulting from contaminated water and air, and
communicable diseases. In the Great
Depression of the 1930s
cities were hard hit by unemployment, especially those with a
base in heavy industry. In the U.S. urbanization rate increased
forty to eighty percent during 1900-1990. Today the world's
population is slightly over half urban, with millions still
streaming annually into the growing cities of Asia, Africa and Latin
America. There has also been a shift to suburbs, perhaps to
avoid crime and traffic, which are two costs of living in an urban
area.

External effects

Modern cities are known for creating their
own microclimates.
This is due to the large clustering of heat absorbent surfaces that
heat up in sunlight and
that channel rainwater into
underground ducts.

Waste and sewage are two major problems for
cities, as is air
pollution coming from internal
combustion engines. The impact of cities on places elsewhere,
be it hinterlands or places far away, is considered in the notion
of city
footprinting (ecological footprint). Other negative external
effects include health consequences such as communicable diseases,
crime, and high traffic and commuting times. Cities cause more
interaction with more people than rural areas, thus a higher
probability to contracting contagious diseases. However, many
inventions such as inoculations, vaccines, and water filtration
systems have also lowered health concerns. Crime is also a
concern in the cities. Studies have shown that crime rates in
cities are higher and the chance of punishment after getting caught
is lower. In cases such as burglary, the higher concentration of
people in cities create more items of higher value worth the risk
of crime. The high concentration of people also makes using
automobiles inconvienint and pedestrin traffic is more prominent in
metropolitan areas than a rural or suburban one.

Cities also generate positive external effects.
The close physical proximity facilitates knowledge spillovers,
helping people and firms exchange information and generate new
ideas. A thicker labor market allows for better skill matching
between firms and individuals. Another positive externality of
cities comes from the diverse social opportunities created when
people of different backgrounds are brought together. Larger cities
typically offer a wider variety of social interests and activities,
letting people of all backgrounds find something they can be
involved in.

The difference between towns and cities

The difference
between towns and cities is
differently understood in different parts of the world. Indeed,
languages other than English often use a single word for both
concepts (French ville, German Stadt, etc.). Even within the
English-speaking
world there is no one standard definition of a city: the term may
be used either for a town possessing city status; for an urban
locality exceeding an arbitrary population size; for a town
dominating other towns with particular regional economic or
administrative significance. Although city can refer to an agglomeration including
suburban and satellite
areas, the term is not usually applied to a conurbation (cluster) of
distinct urban places, nor for a wider metropolitan
area including more than one city, each acting as a focus for
parts of the area. And the word "town" (also "downtown") may mean
the center of the city.

Australia and New Zealand

In Australia, city
in its broadest terms refers simply to any large enough town.
Narrower usage can refer to a local
government area, or colloquially to the central
business district of a large urban area. For instance the City
of South Perth is a local government area within the wider urban
area known as Perth,
commonly called Australia's fourth largest city. Residents of Perth
might speak of travelling to the CBD as "going to the city".

In New Zealand, according to Statistics New Zealand (the
government statistics agency), "A city [...] must have a minimum
population of 50,000, be predominantly urban in character, be a
distinct entity and a major centre of activity within the region.".
For example Gisborne,
purported to be the first city to see the sun, has a population of
only 44,500 (2006) and is therefore administered by a district
council, not a city council. At the other extreme, Auckland, although
it is usually referred to as a single city, is acutally four
cities: Auckland
City, Waitakere,
North
Shore, and Manukau.

Belgium

China

There is a formal definition of city in China provided by the
Chinese government. For an urban area that can be defined as a
city, there should be at least 100,000 non-agricultural population.
City with less than 200,000 non-agricultural population refers to a
Small city, 200,000-500,000 non-agricultural population is a Medium
city, 500,000-1,000,000 non-agricultural population is a Large city
and >1,000,000 non-agricultural population is an Extra-large
city. Also, there is an administrative definition based on the city
boundary too and a city has its legal city limits. In 1998, there
were 668 cities in China - China has the largest urban population
in the world.

Chile

Chile's Department of
National Statistics defines a city (ciudad in Spanish) as an
urban
entity with more than 5,000 inhabitants. A town (pueblo), is an
urban entity with 2,001 to 5,000 persons, however, if the area has
some economic activity, the designation may include populations as
small as 1,001. The department also defines Major Cities as
provincial or regional capitals with populations of 100,001 to
500,000; Great Urban Areas which comprise several entities without
any appreciable limit between them and populations which total
between 500,001 and 1,000,000. A Metropolis is
the largest urban area in the country where there are more than one
million inhabitants. The "urban entity" is defined as a
concentration of habitations with more than 2,000 persons living in
them, or more than 1,000 persons if more than half of those persons
are in some way gainfully employed. Tourist and
recreation areas with
more than 250 living units may be considered as urban areas.

Germany

The German word for both "town" and "city" is
Stadt, while a town with more than 100,000 inhabitants is called a
Großstadt (major city), which is the most adequate equivalence for
city (in terms of differentiating it from a town). On the other
hand, most towns are communities belonging to a Landkreis (county),
but there are some cities, usually with at least 50,000
inhabitants, that are counties by themselves (kreisfreie
Städte).

Italy

In Italy a city is
called città, an uncount noun derived from the latin civitas. The status of
"city" is granted by the President of the Republic with
Presidential Decree Law. The largest and most important cities in
the country, such as Rome, Milan and Naples, are called
aree metropolitane (metropolitan areas) because they include
several minor cities and towns in their areas. There is no
population limit for a city. In the coat of arms, a golden crown
tower stands for a city.

Norway

In Norway a city is
called by and is derived from the norse word býr meaning "a place
with many buildings". Both cities and towns are reffered to as by.
The status of "city" is granted by the local authorities if a
request for city status has been made and the area has a population
of at least 5000. Since 1997, cities no longer have special
administrative functions. If the area has not been granted the
status of a city it is called tettsted or bygd. The terms differ in
that a tettsted has more concentrated population than a bygd. A
bygd is in many ways similar to a village, but the Norwegian term
for village, landsby, is not used for places in Norway.

Poland

In Poland the word
miasto serves for both town and city. There are formal distinctions
which generally differentiate larger towns from smaller ones (such
as status as a separate powiat or county, or the
conferring of the title prezydent on the mayor rather than burmistrz), but
none of these is universally recognized as equivalent to the
English city/town distinction.

Portugal

In Portugal an urban
area is called "cidade" ou "vila". There is also a the notion of
"Grande Área Metropolitana" and "Comunidade Urbana". In general, a
"cidade" is a place with more than 8.000 electors (more or less
10.000 inhabitants) and at least half of the following services:
hospital, pharmacy, fire department, theatre/cultural house,
museum, library, hostal services, basic and secondary schools,
public transport and gardens/urban parks. A cidade's coat of arms
has five towers, while a vila's has only four. A Grande Área
Metropolitana is a wide urban area with at least 350.000
inhabitants and is composed by at least 9 municipalities. A
Comunidade Urbana must have more than 150.000 inhabitants.

South Korea

South Korea
has a system of dividing into metropolitan cities, provinces, a
special city (Seoul) and one
specially self-governing province (Jeju). In South Korea,
cities should have a population of more than 150,000, and if a city
has more than 500,000, it would be divided into 2 districts and
then sub-communities follow as a name of dong with similar system
of normal cities. Additionally, if a city's population is over
1,000,000, then it would be promoted to metropolitan city.

Ukraine

There is no difference in the Ukrainian language
between the notions of "town" and "city". Both these words are
translated into Ukrainian as "місто" ("misto"). In articles of
Wikipedia only the term "city" is used for every Ukrainian locality
named "місто". The smallest population of a city of Ukraine can be
about 10,000. For towns which officially are not named "місто" it
is used a name "urban-type settlement" ("селище міського типу",
"selyshche mis'koho typu") and also (informal) "містечко"
("mistechko"), the latter Ukrainian word is related to the word
"місто" and can be translated as "small town".

United Kingdom

In the United
Kingdom (UK), a city is a town which has been known as a city
since time
immemorial, or which has received city status by letters
patent — which is normally granted on the basis of
size, importance or royal connection (the traditional test was
whether the town had a cathedral) to gain city
status. For example the small town of Ripon was granted
city status in 1836 to coincide with the creation of the Diocese of
Ripon, but also in recognition of its long-standing role as a
supplier of spurs to
royalty. In the United Kingdom, when people talk about cities, they
generally include the suburbs in that. Some cathedral
cities, such as St David's in
Wales and
Wells in
England,
are quite small, and may not be known as cities in common parlance.
Preston
became England's newest city in the year 2002 to mark the Queen's
jubilee, as did Newport in Wales, Stirling in
Scotland,
and Lisburn
and Newry in
Northern
Ireland.

A Review of Scotland's Cities led to the Fair
City of Perth,
Scotland, losing city status.

By both legal and traditional definition, a town
may be of any size, but must contain a market place. A village must
contain a church. A small village without a church is called a
hamlet.

United States

In the United States (USA), the definition of
cities (and town, villages, townships, etc.) is a matter of state
laws and the definitions vary widely by state. A city may, in some
places, be run by an elected mayor and city council, while a town
is governed by people, select board (or board of trustees), or open
town meeting. There are some very large towns (such as
Hempstead, New York, with a population of 755,785 in 2004) and
some very small cities (such as Lake
Angelus, Michigan, with a population of 326 in 2000), and the
line between town and city, if it exists at all, varies from state
to state. Cities in the United States do have many oddities, like
Maza,
North Dakota, the smallest city in the country, has only 5
inhabitants, but is still incorporated. It does not have an active
government, and the mayoral hand changes frequently (due to the
lack of city laws). California has
both towns and cities but the terms "town" and "city" are
considered synonymous.

In some U.S. states, any incorporated town is
also called a city. If a distinction is being made between towns
and cities, exactly what that distinction is often depends on the
context. The context will differ depending on whether the issue is
the legal authority it possesses, the availability of shopping and
entertainment, and the scope of the group of places under
consideration. Intensifiers such as "small town" and "big city" are
also common, though the flip side of each is rarely used.

Some states make a distinction between villages
and other forms of municipalities. In some cases, villages combine
with larger other communities to form larger towns; a well-known
example of an urban village is New York City's famed Greenwich
Village, which started as a quiet country settlement but was
absorbed by the growing city. The word has often been co-opted by
enterprising developers to make their projects sound welcoming and
friendly.

In Illinois, cities
must have a minimum population of 2,500 but in Nebraska, cities
must have a minimum of only 800 residents. In Idaho, all
incorporated municipalities are cities. In Ohio, a municipality
automatically becomes a city if it has 5,000 residents counted in a
federal census but it reverts to a village if its population drops
below 5,000. In Nebraska, 5,000
residents is the minimum for a city of the first class while 800 is
the minimum for a city of the second class.

In all the New England
states, city status is conferred by the form of government, not
population. Town government has a board of selectmen for the executive
branch, and a town meeting
for the legislative
branch. New England cities, on the other hand, have a mayor for the executive, and a
legislature referred to as either the city council or the board of
aldermen.

In Virginia, all
incorporated municipalities designated as cities are independent
of the adjacent or surrounding county while a town is an
incorporated municipality which remains a part of an adjacent or
surrounding county. The largest incorporated municipalities by
population are all cities, although some smaller cities have a
smaller population than some towns. For example, the smallest city
of Norton
has a population of 3,904 and the largest town of Blacksburg
has a population of 39,573. Independent cities in other states
include Baltimore,
Maryland and Carson
City, Nevada.

In Pennsylvania
any municipality with more than 10 persons can incorporate as a
Borough. Any Township or Borough with at least 10,000 population
can ask the legislature to charter as a city. In Pennsylvania a
village is simply an unincorporated community within a
township.

In 1995, Kanter argued that successful cities can
be identified by three elements. To be successful, a city needs to
have good thinkers (concepts), good makers (competence) or good
traders (connections).
The interplay of these three elements, Kanter argued, means that
good cities are not planned but managed.

Inner city

In the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland,
the term "inner city" is sometimes used with the connotation of
being an area, perhaps a ghetto, where people are less
wealthy and where there is more crime. These connotations are less
common in other Western countries, as deprived areas are located in
varying parts of other Western cities. In fact, with the gentrification of some
formerly run-down central city areas the reverse connotation can
apply. In Australia, for example, the term "outer suburban" applied
to a person implies a lack of sophistication. In Paris, the inner city
is the richest part of the metropolitan area, where housing is the
most expensive, and where elites and high-income individuals dwell.
In the developing world, economic modernization brings poor
newcomers from the countryside to build haphazardly at the edge of
current settlement (see favelas, shacks and shanty
towns).

The United States, in particular, has a culture
of anti-urbanism that dates back to colonial times. The American
City
Beautiful architecture movement of the late 1800s was a
reaction to perceived urban decay and sought to provide stately
civic buildings and boulevards to inspire civic pride in the motley
residents of the urban core. Modern anti-urban attitudes are to be
found in America in the form of a planning profession that
continues to develop land on a low-density suburban basis, where
access to amenities, work and shopping is provided almost
exclusively by car rather than on foot.

However, there is a growing movement in North
America called "New
Urbanism" that calls for a return to traditional city planning
methods where mixed-use zoning allows people to walk from one type
of land-use to another. The idea is that housing, shopping, office
space, and leisure facilities are all provided within walking
distance of each other, thus reducing the demand for road-space and
also improving the efficiency and effectiveness of mass
transit.